


An Ode is Owed

by SBG



Series: Butts and Hands [1]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Danny's ass, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Pining, what is this I don't even
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-08
Updated: 2012-01-08
Packaged: 2017-10-29 04:37:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/315903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SBG/pseuds/SBG
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve overhears a conversation that makes him take a look at something he's seen nearly every day for more than a year. In a new light, that something freaks him right the hell out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Ode is Owed

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah. So. This got a tad ridiculous in some places, and remarkably not ridiculous in others, so I'm not sure if it works. I should probably apologize for its very existence, and yet...

“I’m telling you, Danny’s ass did not look like that a few months ago, all tight and round and unf,” Kono Kalakaua’s voice floated into the corridor, smile shining through, making her words sound warm and strangely satisfied. “Well, it probably did, but we’d have never known it. His wardrobe improvements have definitely put a spotlight on it.”

Steve McGarrett halted before rounding the corner. It sounded like a conversation he didn’t really want to be a part of, and when Kono’s rambling was met with silence Steve could _feel_ as being uncomfortable, he guessed whoever she was talking to felt similarly to him. He didn’t move. He didn’t know why; retreating out of the building would have been the sensible move.

“I suppose it could be he got a bump in pay grade so he could afford better clothes, but we’d know about that, wouldn’t we?”

Soft footfalls, and Steve visualized Kono’s lithe frame pacing. He also pictured a devilish glint in her eye.

“No, it’s something else. He’s looking good. You can’t tell me you haven’t noticed.”

More silence, then a considered, “Actually, I can tell you that. And I have no idea why you’d think I would notice Danny’s butt, of all things, or why I’d want to discuss it even if I had.”

“I know you’re straight as an arrow, cuz, but come _on_. Danny’s ass is a thing of beauty. You know it. I know it. Everyone knows it.”

Steve heard a thumping sound and pictured Chin banging his head against something. Desk, wall, whatever. The acoustics of the place made it difficult to tell, but boy, did it allow voices to carry. He grinned. Poor Chin Ho Kelly. He was a just-the-facts Joe Friday kind of guy, and Kono knew that. A conversation about a teammate’s butt had to be excruciating for him. If Steve were a nice guy, he’d go through the open doors and put Chin out of his misery. He was a nice guy, really, but this was too entertaining. He wanted to see where it would go, and maybe pick up a few tips on how to zing his partner while he was at it. One of the highlights of a boring day was to work Danny into a froth, and it had been forever since he’d taken the opportunity. It might be the distraction he needed, get his mind off the blood and death and vengeance swirling in his thoughts almost every waking minute. He settled against the wall, crossed his arms and waited.

“Again, I’m just not sure why you’re having this conversation with me. Lori would have been a better choice. You guys could have bonded, done the girl thing.”

“First of all, girl thing? Really, it’s like you don’t even know me. Second, well, either Danny has more money to spend, like I said. Or,” Kono said. “Or, and I think this is more likely, because let’s face it, Danny’s not naturally a clothes hound and if he had more money he’d need it for a better place to live. So maybe it’s not that. Maybe he’s seeing someone and they’re polishing up our little diamond in the rough.”

“Could be? I don’t think it’s any of our business.”

“I know it’s not you and I know it’s not me, but it could be Lori, which is why I couldn’t bring it up to her. I didn’t want her to think I had a thing for her boyfriend’s butt.”

“You _do_ seem to have a thing for her boyfriend’s butt.”

Steve pushed off the wall, and frowned. Lori and Danny? As in, Lori plus Danny plus bedroom acrobatics. Something in his gut started to hurt and he had no idea why. He knew he didn’t like the images now flashing in his head any more than he liked the nightmares already there in a continuous loop.

“And, anyway, I kind of think Lori’s got a thing for Steve,” Chin said slowly, sounding invested in the conversation and slightly resentful for it. “Not Danny.”

“Who hasn’t at some point or another?” Kono said with a sigh.

“Me.”

Wait, him and Lori, now? Steve hadn’t seen that one coming at all, either. He liked her fine. She was beautiful and everything, but she was a glorified babysitter and he wasn’t going to forget that anytime soon. Hell, if he did have any kind of intentions toward her, the first thing she’d probably do if he did anything about them was tell the governor. No. He did not need the grief about non-fraternization rules, which didn’t even apply to Five-O. He was genuinely trying not to think about why he had a viscerally bad reaction to the idea of Lori with Danny and only a vague disconcertion about Lori with himself.

“I’m beginning to think you were right. You were the wrong person to talk with about this. I thought maybe just getting back from your honeymoon would have loosened you up some.”

“Kono, nothing’s going to make me loose enough to want to talk about this. If I’d have known where you were going, I would have stopped you before you started,” Chin said dryly. “Does this mean we can quit talking about Danny’s anatomy now?”

“You’re off the hook. Can we talk about the boss instead?”

Steve’s Hawai’ian was rusty, but he swore he heard Chin mutter something along the lines of “kill me now”, and that was the last he wanted to hear. Eavesdropping about Danny was one thing, about himself a whole other thing. He pivoted and quickly made his way out of the Palace, his mind racing with thoughts of Danny sleeping with Lori and various, clear images of Danny’s ass set on a carousel. He found that suddenly and through no fault of his own, he wanted to put a violent end to the first if it was happening, and give the other a hands-on squeeze test. There had to be something seriously wrong with him that of those two things, what he couldn’t stop thinking about for a second was his partner’s tight little rear end.

Right?

He had no idea where he was going, but had a burning desire to get there as fast as possible. Steve turned to look back, make sure neither Kono nor Chin had seen him. He didn’t know why, except maybe they’d sense something, get a read on his mood or sudden, alarming thoughts on Danny's ass. When he righted his attention forward, suddenly there they were – Danny and Lori, practically on top of each other, shoulders touching as they walked, and they were practically on top of him, too. He was light on his feet on most days, but he couldn’t stop from plowing into them. Lori sustained the worst of the damage with an elbow to the jaw. All three went down, though, a tangle of limbs and curses that landed in a pile on the sidewalk.

“Steve, what the hell?” Danny groused, wiggled.

And oh holy mother of fuck Steve’s hands were somehow full of Danny’s ass and it was all … he let go as if on fire, scrambled to his feet. Lori gazed up at him, color high on her cheekbones, dazed look in her eyes. Danny, on the other hand, shot daggers at him as he stood there gaping.

“I hate to be Etiquette Police once more with feeling, but it’s customary for the Neanderthal that barrels over people and knocks them ass over teakettle to extend an offer to help them up,” Danny said, holding out his hand. “And at least pretend to care if they are all right.”

Lori quickly followed suit with a hand in the air, like she was a damned graduate student in the Danny Williams Institute of Higher Dramatics.

Fine, whatever, if it’d get him out of there faster. Steve grabbed both of them at once and heaved them to their feet. Lori, weighing next to nothing, flew up and had to clutch at him so as not to stumble back down. He extracted himself, again like he was on fire, because a brush with her relatively bony (by comparison to Danny’s) ass was something he instantly decided he didn’t need to experience again but his hands couldn’t be trusted to not feel up someone else standing right there awfully close.

“Sorry, didn’t see you,” Steve mumbled and got the hell out of there.

“You’re an animal!” Danny shouted.

Steve waved and made it to his truck, climbed in and resisted the urge to put his forehead on the steering wheel and a hand on his distressingly hard dick in favor of starting the engine and peeling away from the Danny-n-Lori duo.

He wasn’t an animal, but he was starting to think he was definitely something else.

H50H50H50

To put it mildly, Steve was no stranger to obsession. Some, namely Danny, might say it was his actual middle name. This was every bit Kono’s fault, and he couldn’t even openly blame her without letting her (and thus everyone) know what his deal was. Whatever his deal was, that was. He didn’t know what to call it, but did know it was both killing and saving him. All he could think about now was Danny’s ass. The look of it, and, God, the feel of it. It was about four billion times better than reliving Jenna Kaye dying in front of him, the phantom pain of a bolt of electricity to his busted ribcage.

It started off small, of course. There was no way Danny would ever manage the lead in a foot chase, for example, because the guy was, well, tiny, but if Steve happened to develop a habit of giving him a head start, then so what? Danny’s ego needed coddling at times. And if there weren’t foot chases to be had and Steve happened to always usher Danny ahead of him through a door, then he was just being polite, something Danny harangued him about anyway.

Steve discovered he had an eidetic memory when it came to Danny’s behind, and could call up images of what it looked like in every pair of trousers Danny owned and what it looked like when Danny ran, scaled ladders, swam and (shit, shit) leaned over the console as if standing like that disguised his discomfort at being the shortest in the room. Photographic memory was an amazing thing to have, when it didn’t make him lose concentration on whatever he was supposed to be thinking about. That was an area in which he could use some practice and improvement, but currently images of Danny's ass superseded pretty much everything in the known universe.

“Hey.” Fingers snapped right in his face. “Helllloo, Earth to McGarrett, come in, McGarrett.”

“Hm, what?”

“I’ve been trying to get your attention for two minutes now. Do you have any idea how long two minutes is?” Danny said. He leaned, knuckles down, on Steve’s desk, forearm muscles turning to thick ropes. “It’s a long time to be in a thousand-yard stare.”

That was another thing. Danny was like the nagging wife stereotype television sitcoms relied on, and instead of being annoyed, it charmed Steve into a stupor half the time. The Jersey accent had softened a little, or he’d grown accustomed to it. He was long past the time to admit to himself he had a capital T thing for his partner. Now, it was just his life. Half the time in a daze from the physicality of Danny, half the time in a catatonic state induced by irritable rambling that shouldn’t be so cute.

“It’s nothing. I’m fine.”

Danny gave him the stink eye, and a head tilt to signify skepticism.

“You forget that I’m a detective, and I detect that you, my friend, are not fine. Seriously, you doing okay in here?” Danny rapped his own head with a knuckle and frowned. Genuine concern bled into the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, the downward tilt of his mouth. “I can’t have my partner checking out on me.”

Steve didn’t know what to do with the concern. A flood of warmth started low in his stomach and bled out toward his extremities. For all his gruff and grumble, Danny _did_ care and he knew Danny had an inkling what had been going on with him. It was one of the reasons he couldn’t have Danny living with him any more, picked fights and made up stupid rules. Turned out that was only part of it. Danny’s butt had something to do with it, he was sure. And two weeks ago, Steve staring into the distance might have been related to his experiences in North Korea. Now, now it was predominately about Danny and what a relief that almost was.

He wished he’d never helped Danny want to move out of his house.

“I’m sorry, Daniel, I was just thinking about something,” Steve said, trying to capture the lighthearted flip he used to manage before his mouth always went dry when Danny and that ass of his were within a ten foot radius of him. “What can I do for you?”

Danny didn’t look like he believed him, but after a few moments his shoulders relaxed and the moue of worry faded a bit.

“Well, I wish I could say we caught a break on these elusive arms dealers, but I was actually just coming to see if you wanted something to eat.” The corners of Danny’s mouth lifted again, amused by something. “It’s on Chin and Kono.”

“You’d think they’d learn better than to go up against you.” Steve had no idea what that was all about, but the Jersey in Danny also made him competitive as all hell. He could guess what had connived the cousins out of lunch money. “Whatever it was.”

“They’re buyin’, I’m flyin’, because I’m a gentleman,” Danny said with a wink. “You look like you are really hungry, if you know what I mean.”

Oh, Danny had no idea what he didn’t mean at all was immediately what Steve thought. What he wanted for lunch he was never gonna get, and that just made him hungrier.

“Yeah, sure. Get whatever. Spend their money to your heart’s content.”

“I knew there was a reason I liked you. Most expensive thing on the menu it is.” Danny pivoted and headed for the door. “Maybe two orders. Not to be rude, babe, but you’re looking skinny.”

Steve’s eyes naturally traveled southward as he watched Danny go, gave him another image to add to the growing stalkery mental montage he had going on. He shook his head. He had to be more damned careful about this. His behavior was getting noticed and he was better than that, and he’d have to watch now that Danny thought he was having a hard time. Hard time. Jesus.

“Hey, you need company?” Steve asked. His voice cracked. He was such a sucker for punishment.

“Nah.” Danny looked back. “Lori already volunteered.”

Lori? Danny was palling around with Lori? Even in his head, it sounded whiny.

Steve couldn’t do anything but watch Danny strut away with Lori in tow, any genuine appetite he’d had going right out the door with them. He couldn’t charge out there and grab Danny away without looking like a lunatic, so he merely slumped over and put his head down on the desk for a second. That didn’t present a much better picture than chasing after Lori and Danny, knocking her out of the way and proverbially pulling Danny’s pigtails to get him to notice what had become to Steve Very Obvious Feelings. Because. Just because he had Very Obvious Feelings didn’t mean Danny could ever know about them. It didn’t mean Danny returned them. Steve was unrequited as a poor son of a bitch could get.

Maybe this wasn’t any better than Wo Fat, except, yes, yes, it was. Steve just had to get a grip. He’d gone from zero to eighty in five seconds, so all he had to do was apply the brakes and get back to zero. Easy. Danny was just Danny. Danny’s ass was just an ass. A magnificent, magnetic, marvelous, mind-blowing derriere that called for poetry to be written about it.

Yeah, Steve was fucked. And he absolutely did not watch the door like a hawk until Lori and Danny returned, and he did not spend more time hiding a scowl and pushing rice around his plate than eating.

H50H50H50

The day Danny casually tried to insert callipygian, the word of the day from the motherfucking Word of the Day Calendar Steve had motherfucking bought for him, into the conversation while they were following a vital lead on the human traffickers du jour, Steve nearly choked on his own tongue and avoided plowing the Camaro into a kukui tree by a narrow margin.

H50H50H50

Steve decided the only way he and Danny’s callipygian ass wouldn’t end up creamed was if he distanced himself again. Led himself not into temptation. He started pairing up Chin and Danny for case related activities. It was the only safe combination for his mental health. Except, it didn’t take him long to realize it wasn’t any better, because he missed Danny for Danny, not just various and sundry of Danny’s attributes, and so his brain suffered all kinds of agony anyway. Obviously, that plan had been stupid as hell.

He couldn’t avoid Danny and he couldn’t be near Danny. Steve had to accept that nothing he could do was going to work, and that this issue of his couldn’t have only started because he’d overheard Kono extolling the virtues of Danny’s backside. It was deeper than that, and fuck him, how did that even happen without a guy knowing it? He should have been an active participant in his own downfall, at least. Nope, it wasn’t just that he had the hots for Danny. The ass was just the cherry on top of a complicated sundae he couldn’t know wouldn’t punch him in the gut if he walked up to it one day, copped a feel and expressed his possible love, true love.

It was hard as hell (literally, much of the time), but Steve powered through it. He was a SEAL. He could handle himself in any situation, survive torture and PTSD. He was _okay_ walking side by side with the finest ass on all the islands. There was nothing wrong with wanting to poke people’s eyes out if he caught them looking at it, which was stupid, because what ably sighted person wouldn’t look with total admiration and awe?

“Excuse me,” Danny said. He twisted to the side to highlight his badge to the kid behind the counter. “We’re looking for Ricky Awana. He on shift today?”

Ricky Awana was a very small cog in a very large wheel, a thin lead that Steve didn’t think would yield any results. They were days behind on this one, which might as well have been years. He wasn’t sure they’d ever find who was responsible for the huge marijuana operation tucked deep into Pahole, and even if they did, the drug trade was one of those things that they’d never actually beat. It was a case he knew he should care more about, but with hauntings from Jenna Kaye and Wo Fat and this thing with Danny, he simply didn’t. Shutting it down with minimal damage was a success in its own right. Not that that was all Five-O would do. They were damned good at their jobs.

“Will Ricky Awana be in today, is what I’m asking.” Danny was louder and crankier that time, after the counter kid didn’t respond with anything more than a blink.

Back and to the left, a young man’s shoulders straightened ever so slightly at Danny’s inquiry. Half a second and a furtive glance over his shoulder later, he bolted toward the back of the shop.

“I take that as a yes,” Danny grumbled to the cashier, who sneered. “Asshole.”

Danny followed Awana.

Steve totally did not pause to watch Danny go. Nope. That did not happen. What did happen was that he immediately raced out the front, planning to go round back and catch Awana off guard. He skittered into the alley and found it empty, which made him curse a blue streak for misjudging the situation. He heaved at the back door, which was locked. He kicked it in, half expecting Awana to be behind it. He wasn’t that lucky. The sound of a scuffle and shouting toward a closed door led him to the men’s room. As he shoved the door open, he saw Danny and Awana were struggling in a stall, limbs thumping against metal walls. The glint of silver in Awana’s right hand went unnoticed by Danny, who wrested Awana’s left hand from the flusher.

“Danny,” Steve shouted, too late to do any good.

The knife plunged into Danny’s flesh, provoking a choked yell of pain and anger. Danny’s legs buckled, but he took Awana with him, bodily slamming the guy back into the stall door first, then flopping on top of him. The blade was yanked back out, causing another choked howl and a fierce punch to the side of Awana’s head. The knife skittered across the bathroom floor and clanked against the far wall.

Steve leaped into the fray, yanking a dazed Awana free, up and had him cuffed to the urinal’s pipe in less than two seconds. He barely resisted the urge to pound the guy’s face in. Danny moaning and swearing down on the floor saved Awana a broken nose.

“Danny,” he said and fell to his knees beside his partner. “Let me see, let me see it.”

“Fucking fucker fucking stabbed me in the fucking _ass_ ,” Danny said through clenched teeth. “Fuck.”

Truly, Steve understood the heinousness of the crime. The left half of Danny’s beautiful butt was covered in blood, and it soaked down the back of his leg as well. Awana started laughing, and that was just _it_. Steve stood, mock stumbled and knocked the guy’s head into the wall, hard.

“Whoops,” he said and watched Awana slump toward the floor.

“Hey, hey,” Danny wheezed. “Drugs. Toilet.”

Steve pulled himself together. As he checked the stool and found the evidence still there, he called for backup and a bus, then went back to Danny’s side. There wasn’t much he could do, practicality speaking, but instinct had him grab a handful of paper towels and press against the wound to stop the bleeding. He nearly jerked his hands back at the high, pained whine that emitted from Danny at that, but didn’t. In deference to his partner, he pretended he didn’t hear it.

“Hey, it’s not that bad. It’s not even that bad.” Steve was a liar. The bastard had fucking disfigured Danny’s ass, the puncture deep and ugly. He patted Danny’s good side. “EMTs’ll be here in a minute.”

“Oh God, McGarrett, are you seriously groping me right now? In a public men’s room?”

“I’m trying to comfort you and stop the bleeding,” Steve said, throat tight and dry. “I can let you bleed to death if you’d prefer.”

Danny just moaned and squirmed around a little, pressed himself into Steve’s hands; he could have no idea what that was doing to Steve’s insides.

The injury wasn’t life threatening. Maybe had Steve not been recently introduced to the wonder of Danny’s firm buttocks, he would have been able to tease the hell out of his partner. As it stood, he was shocked and appalled by the travesty and had plans for Awana once he woke up and was in interrogation. Dumb fuck, they’d just wanted to ask him some questions and now they had him on possession and assaulting a police officer.

“It look bad?” Danny asked piteously.

“Your ass is fine.”

“How kind of you to notice.”

Steve opened his mouth, discovered he had no idea what to say to that which wouldn’t come off wrong, and closed it again just in time for two uniforms burst into the bathroom, with two EMTs right on their tails. At least one of the four probably wanted to laugh at the image of him with his hands all over his partner, but Steve made sure to icy stare and dramatic jaw clench the inclination right out of that. He let HPD book Awana, and on the way to the hospital called Chin to cover Five-O’s end of things.

The ER nurses and docs wheeled Danny away and left him standing in the middle of the corridor wondering at the fate of Danny’s remarkable gluteus maximus. He remained standing there until the rest of his team started to arrive. Lori was the first. That pissed Steve off to an irrational degree, until he noticed she was gazing at him the same way he was trying to hide he spent so much time gazing at Danny, and then he just felt uncomfortable and slightly guilty.

H50H50H50

“Let me get this straight. You practically kicked me out of your place not a month ago, and now you invite me back to recuperate? You give me whiplash sometimes,” Danny said to Steve. To the nurse, he said, “I don’t need that thing.”

“Wheelchair’s standard. Deal with it,” Nurse Betty said without humor, apparently not won over by Danny’s butt the way everyone in the world ought to be.

Danny eased gingerly onto his inflatable doughnut (Kono had drawn an obscene smiley face on both sides) and grumbled under his breath until Betty beat a path out of the room, her mission accomplished.

“I miss you,” Steve said. Then felt his cheeks get hot. “I mean, I miss having someone else around.”

“Oh.” Danny chewed on his lip and looked adorably thoughtful at him. It was probably the painkillers. “Okay.”

Steve retreated to safe ground behind the chair. As he wheeled Danny out, he did not stare at the little curl of hair at the nape of Danny’s neck at all.

H50H50H50

The face staring back at him in the mirror seemed too pale and haggard to be his. Steve shakily turned on the cold water tap, cupped his hands under the stream and splashed that grey-tinged face. He scrubbed his fingers down his cheeks, tried to rub away the remnants of the episode. It hadn’t been a nightmare; he couldn’t call it that. He’d been there again, North Korea, only this time it had been so much worse. The smells and sounds and the agonizing pull on his shoulders were all the same. Wo Fat’s angular, cold face was stark with reality.

The only thing different, the only thing that had made him hope and pray it wasn’t happening in actual time, was that it hadn’t been Jenna chained up fifteen feet away. It wasn’t Jenna who had a hole blown into her chest while Steve watched, helpless. The intense pain and rage he felt was forty times as strong as when it had been her there.

He’d pulled out if it with Danny’s name choking in his throat, his pulse racing and thin film of sweat soaking clear through his sheets.

Splashing water on his face was a butterfly bandage on a gaping wound, inadequate and unlikely to do much of anything to help. Steve cupped more water, drank some of it and doused his face again with the rest. He had to at least try to get this thing under control. It had been nearly a month since anything except impure thoughts about Danny had sent his brain misfiring in fifty directions at once. He much preferred that. All he had to do was make it till morning, then the sight of a rumpled, grouchy Danny would set him straight, er, or whatever again.

He grabbed a hand towel, dabbed his face and then flicked the bathroom light off before opening the door and stumbling back toward the bed. Upright, conscious and walking, Steve still couldn’t shake the image of Danny lying there with a fatal gunshot wound, or the desperate blue to his eyes a millisecond before it happened. He supposed it had everything to do with Awana managing to cut Danny right in front of him; he wasn’t an idiot. He felt restless, unsettled mentally and physically. He’d normally go for a run or something, but he didn’t want to wake Danny.

Instead of collapsing back onto his sweat-damp sheets, Steve silently headed to the rail to look down into the living area. He stared at Danny sprawled on the sofa, his mess of light hair, the one arm, well muscled, on top of the blanket. That was a much better image to lie down to. He had no illusions about sleeping for the rest of the night, but he couldn’t stand there gawking for hours, either.

He slipped back to his bedroom and lay face down, crossways on the bed. He replayed the stored images of Danny he had in his brain, then conjured up new ones just because he could and because it beat the hell out of the alternative. Steve closed his eyes, and when he opened them was surprised to find morning light streaming through the window. Stretching, then rising, he donned shorts, tank and running shoes and slipped out the door.

Taxed by the events of the night, Steve only made it four miles. He didn’t have the energy to follow it up with a brief swim, so when he returned to the house he went straight in. The smell of coffee and charred bread hit him the second he walked in the door, and he had to grin at the evidence he had company. Not just any company. Danny. He continued to smile as he made his way back to the kitchen. At the door, he halted.

Danny stood at the sink, staring out the window, in nothing but a light pair of pajama bottoms. Hair unkempt, stubbled jaw, bare feet, cup of coffee wrapped in his hands. Burnt toast sat uneaten on the table.

Steve’s mouth went dry.

“I made you a protein shake,” Danny said, without looking. “I don’t know how you drink that crap, but you look like you need all the nourishment you can get. I figured that glop was better than the nothing you’ve been eating. It’s in the fridge.”

Steve jerked, just a little when Danny started talking, then headed for the fridge. He didn’t bother protesting Danny’s proclamation about his eating habits, because the guy wasn’t wrong. If it wasn’t one thing, it was Danny’s ass and keeping himself fed had seemed less important than anything else going on. He leaned against the counter, facing inside the house to Danny’s external point of focus, and saw his partner looked pale, worn and had dark circles under his eyes.

“You okay?” Steve asked after he took a sip of the shake, which was disgusting. It was the thought that counted, that made his stomach feel warm and his head buzz. “You look rough.”

“I have a pain in the ass that isn’t just you for a change,” Danny said with a thin smile. “Took a pill or two, so that one’ll be better in a few minutes. You, on the other hand.”

“Me?”

Danny lost the smile, set his coffee down. He turned to face Steve, leaned carefully against the counter, letting his right side bear the brunt of his weight. Even the lines of pain crinkled at the corners of his eyes were fetching.

“You had one last night.” Danny scratched at the side of his face with a thumb, the sound like sandpaper in the quiet kitchen. “Don’t tell me you don’t know what I mean. You look like forty different kinds of shit, McGarrett, and I don’t think you even know it. It’s North Korea, isn’t it?”

Steve wanted to flee. It wasn’t North Korea, not one hundred percent. He didn’t want to talk about either issue bothering him, because either one would make people, make Danny, run from him. No one wanted the broken toy.

“I don’t want to talk about that, Danny,” Steve said, meaning to sound final but instead sounded pathetic. “Please.”

“I noticed it before, you know.” Danny was casual now, but bright spots of color appeared on his otherwise pale cheeks. Anger, maybe concern. He crossed his arms, leaned just a bit more heavily to the right. “The sleeplessness. It hasn’t gone away on its own, apparently. And I wasn’t kidding. You’re skinny as hell these days.”

“It’s been better.” Steve shrugged and drank the rest of the disgusting, well-intentioned protein shake in one go. He focused on the empty glass instead of Danny.

“Liar. I know you. I won’t make you talk about it, but I want you to know you can. I don’t … Steve, you’ve been through some heavy stuff, okay? I can’t know what it was like, but I’m not a total stranger to that kind of shit, either.”

Damn Danny anyway. Steve didn’t even have to be ogling him to be obsessed. Damn Danny for being annoying and still being so fucking … everything Steve knew he needed. It hit him again like a blow from Wo Fat’s cattle prod, except, except it didn’t hurt, only stunned on a mental level instead of physical.

“Danny, it really has been better. These last weeks, it hasn’t been … that, or not until last night,” Steve said in a rush. “I swear to you, I haven’t had something like that happen in weeks.”

“Saying I believe you, ‘cause I gotta say, buddy, you’ve been distracted and consistently off for a while now, why last night?” Danny asked. “What brought it on?”

Steve wished the guy were wearing a shirt, for fuck’s sake. He tried not to stare, at the chest or the abs or the way the pajama bottoms sat low on Danny’s hips. When Danny took a step toward him, he had no choice but to skitter away and freeze like a frightened rabbit. He snapped his eyes up, met Danny’s, which were awash with rapidly changing emotion. There wasn’t anything Steve could say here. The truth would send Danny packing. Lies would too. After a strained amount of silence, Danny uncrossed his arms and pushed off the counter.

“Sorry, I said I wouldn’t make you do something so well-adjusted as talk.” Danny shook his head. “Just … don’t let this snowball, huh? You’ve got people to help you with this shit. All of it. You don’t have to be a super SEAL every minute of the day.”

Danny turned to go, but not before Steve caught a wave of discomfort wash across his features. He swept his gaze across Danny’s smooth shoulders, down to his butt, made imperfect by the bandages padding the left side. Steve would have to find a reason to get Awana into interrogation again, just because.

“It was you,” Steve said. He stood straight, kind of taken off guard himself. What he was going to say involved telling Danny to actually take those pills he said he had but clearly hadn’t. Standing there, staring at his injured partner’s butt, his brain and mouth started contradicting each other. “Instead of Jenna. It was you there, bleeding on the floor and I couldn’t … I can’t. Danny, it was you and it’s _been_ you.”

“What?” Danny spun back around, too fast. He grimaced and listed to the left as his damaged muscles apparently flared. “Urgh.”

Instinct kicked in. Steve had his arms around Danny so fast it left him slightly breathless. All that bare flesh, the slight tremor he felt running through his partner. He didn’t let Danny pull away, just shifted so he had a firm grip on Danny’s elbows. It wasn’t like he’d expected to lay his hands on Danny, but if he had expected it, he wouldn’t have wanted it be a result of pain.

“Easy, I gotcha. C’mon.”

Steve quickly got Danny out of the kitchen, half hauled him to the sofa and helped him lie on his good side. He did not like the pastiness of Danny’s face. After making sure Danny was situated, he went back to the kitchen for a glass of water and snagged the prescription bottle off the coffee table. He tipped two pills out onto his palm, handed Danny the glass and held out his hand.

“Here,” Steve said. “I’m not the only liar. Take.”

Danny took the pills without protest, which said a lot about how he felt.

“Jesus, who knew a knife to the ass could hurt so damned much?” Danny muttered, voice tight with pain.

Steve did. Maybe not physically himself, but the mental toll… He sat on the coffee table, leaned his elbows onto his knees. It didn’t take long for the medication to start easing the lines on Danny’s face.

“Better?”

“Mmm.” Danny nodded, awkward against the pillow. “But you didn’t answer. What did you mean, it’s been me?”

“Danny, trust me when I say you don’t want to know.”

“I get the weirdness of morphing me into your nightmares.” Danny gestured to his ass. “Not rocket science. I’m okay, though.”

Steve chewed on the inside of his cheek, said nothing.

“This only just happened, but you’ve been weird for a long time. So what did you mean it was me, before, and not North Korea?”

“Maybe it _was_ North Korea, not your butt,” Steve muttered under his breath. He should have known Danny wouldn’t let it go.

“Not my butt?” Damnit, Danny’s hearing hadn’t been dulled by narcotics at all. “You’re not going to give me grief about this now, are you? My pride’s taken a serious blow, but I told you my butt’s going to be okay.”

“That’s the problem.” And, clearly mouth was winning over brain. Steve ran a hand through his hair and stood. He waved his arms about. “Your butt, Danny, is the problem because it’s more than okay. It’s been more than okay for longer than I can even figure out, and it’s driving me crazy. Your ass drives me crazy.”

“Are you … you’re saying…” Danny stared at him, eyes bleary with drugs but still sharp, somehow. With inhibitions lowered, he couldn’t disguise the shock.

“Danny,” Steve said, glancing at Danny’s feet, then knees, then stomach, then everything, everything. It was too late to take any of it back, so he might as well get it all out there. He took a deep breath. “I think I might be a little gay for your ass. Or more than a little. If I could, I’d write an ode to it. It’s seriously the most amazing thing in the entire world. You’re the most amazing thing in the entire world.”

“Oh, shit, you _are_ saying,” Danny breathed. He raised himself wobbily on an elbow, the sharpness in his eyes going slightly sloppy as the drugs really did their stuff.

Oh, shit indeed. Oh, shit, oh, shit. Steve backpedaled.

“I’m sorry, brah. I didn’t mean for you to ever know. It doesn’t have to be a thing. Pretend I didn’t say any of that.”

Steve hurried from the room and up the stairs before Danny could say anything else. He knew as well as anyone that once the proverbial cat was out of the bag, there was no stuffing it back in.

Fuck Danny’s irresistible ass, anyway.

H50H50H50

Steve took a much longer shower than was strictly necessary, ignoring firmly entrenched habits to linger under the heat until his fingers and toes started to prune, and the water started to go lukewarm. He wanted to wash everything away and he wanted to give Danny time to make his escape, as he knew Danny would. Of course he would. He couldn’t stay in the same house as the pervert who pined after his ass. The longer Steve stayed upstairs, the longer he had to get used to the idea of Danny being gone. He’d made such a mess. He threw on a T and board shorts, listened for sounds downstairs he knew wouldn't come.

Though Steve had anticipated it, it still made him falter a step on the stairs when he found the sofa empty. It wasn’t like anything in his life ever actually went his way. There’d been no chance in hell Danny would react well. He had not idea why he’d even harbored that idea deep in his reservoirs, but based on the sick feeling in his gut, he had. Now it was all screwed up. He’d never been one for regret. What was done was done. In this, though, he wished he could rewind, wished that he’d never overheard Kono in the first place and remained oblivious. Chances were he never would have figured it out, because, he had to admit, sometimes he was emotionally stunted. Epically, as it turned out, since he’d had no hint he might swing toward men despite spending fifteen years in the Navy. That was the power of Danny Williams’ ass.

He wasn’t sure what to do now, alone in this house that had had its own ghosts before he started living it in again and now had so many it was teeming. Before, he’d have been fine handling it all on his own. He’d handled it all on his own since he was sixteen. Now, Steve realized he hadn’t been handling anything by himself for over a year, Danny insinuating into his life in so many ways without him even realizing it. He rubbed his eyes and went to the lana’i, sat down heavily. A beer would have been a good idea, but he didn’t want to go back in. He stared moodily at the small expanse of beach instead.

Except, was he really going to sit there and accept this? No. No, he had to fix it, somehow. He couldn’t turn back time, but that didn’t mean he should simply let Danny walk away from a partnership that had never been dull and always been a thing of as much beauty as the ass that had started Steve down this stupid path. He had to make it right. He practically hopped to his feet, determined to make it work, even though he didn’t know what _it_ was. He had no plan. He was winging it. He pivoted … and found Danny leaned against the wall just outside the door.

“Hey,” Danny said. He took a step, wavered, then sank back to his original position. He still didn’t look that great, actually. “I think you misunderstood me before.”

“Danny. What, you’re, what?”

Steve blinked. Okay, so he didn’t have to go anywhere to fix things, and that was where his neurons stopped firing properly. His brain froze. He had no plan, and Danny hadn’t run away. He had, however, put on a plain white T-shirt, which stretched across and no, no, no Steve had to fix things, not make them worse. He felt the blush creep up his neck.

”I was expecting you to finally admit you weren’t coping all that well after North Korea.” Danny frowned. “Well, actually, no, I wasn’t expecting. I was hoping for that, and only that. So, the whole ‘gay for your ass’ thing, it threw me.”

“I know. About that, I really am sorry. I shouldn’t have said it. Danny, please, please.”

“Steve,” Danny said. “Calm down. You think I’m some kind of asshole or something? You spring that you had a nightmare about me dying in front of you, then add so much more to that, actual bona fide depth of feeling. Give a guy a break. I went in with one expectation and got something so, so far from that it surprised me. Your reaction to torture and your reaction to having a thing for my behind and me have remarkably similar symptoms, which is confusing, but whatever. Anyway, and most of all, when I said, ‘oh shit’, I meant that you have phenomenally bad timing.”

Steve sank into the chair. He was starting to not understand Danny at all. It must be a proximity thing or something. God, his brain was never going to function again at this rate.

“I don’t, uh, you don’t hate me? You don’t want to trade in for a new partner? Lori, maybe.”

“Lori? Where did that come from? Nice girl, but she’s got a crush on you. For a profiler, she's surprisingly transparent about it. You should really do something about that, since you have a crush on my butt.”

Danny took another shot at moving away from the wall. The limp was pronounced and the gait unsteady. Truth be told, the guy looked ashen again and Steve instinctively leapt to his feet and was at Danny’s side in a second.

“Jesus, you look like shit. Lie down.” He wrapped an arm around Danny’s shoulder.

“You’re bossy. And handsy. Reckless. Completely screwed in the head. And I haven’t hated you since that first day when you were a gargantuan jackass with every reason to be. Even then I didn’t really hate you, you know.”

“I know,” Steve said as he settled Danny on a lounge chair. He didn’t let go of Danny’s shoulder, replaying what Danny had said. “Bad timing?”

“Phenomenally.”

“What does that mean, exactly?”

“This,” Danny said, waving a limp arm at his reclined pose, hand circling around his ass. “You’ve got a thing for this. It’s bad timing that your hands – you have nice hands, by the way, I kind of have a thing for them – won’t be coming near it anytime soon. Bad. Timing.”

“My hands?” Steve repeated, alarmed to hear his voice had gone up a notch. That sick, strange feeling in his gut started changing, still strange but definitely not sick. Not that. He started to get it. “You like my hands.”

“More than your hands, actually, pretty much all of you but your feet, which are really funny looking, I have to say, but that’s besides the point. My ass. Your hands. We’re quite the pair.”

“Is this the drugs talking? Danny?”

“Not the drugs,” Danny said. He smiled, then leered at Steve openly. “Well, maybe they loosened my tongue a little, but not a lot.”

“You. This,” Steve said, in a daze again. He sat heavily in the chair next to Danny’s lounger. He had a feeling he was going to have to be prepared for much more of this condition. He had a feeling he didn’t mind at all.

“Hey, Steve?”

“Yes, Danny?”

“How about we work on putting some meat back on your bones while my amazing ass heals?” Danny waggled his eyebrows. “You heal. I heal. By the time it’s all better, you should have the stamina I can promise you that you’re going to need when I let you do whatever you want to my ass.”

That was an offer Steve could not refuse.


End file.
